As if the joy of working for Apple wasn't reward enough, all Apple employees will now get a $500 discount off Macs and $250 off iPads.
CEO Tim Cook played Santa Claus at Apple's "Town Hall" meeting with employees in Cupertino yesterday, 9 to 5 Mac reported, handing out the kit discounts to staff as a celebration of Apple's …

COMMENTS

I think apple is racist against Asians.

The people who put together the machines are committing suicide in order to garner attention towards their dire working conditions, while the assholes whom simply sell these devices get bonuses like this.

And just because everyone else uses Foxconn, doesn't mean Apple have to. The issue of suicides and working conditions remain for ALL companies using it. If you gave a shit you be writing to someone about it rather than criticising someone for bringing it up to begin with!

What I love, is the way that Apple fanboys claim there is something special about the manufacture of their machines comparing them to the likes of BMW. But as you rightly point out, they are made by the same people, with many of the same off the shelf internals as other systems.

But Foxconn's customers are responsible for the working conditions

@AC Posted Friday 27th January 2012 01:26 GMT

Apple can demand all they want, Foxconn has agreed to it. Foxconn could say no. Chances are, Foxconn is able to get more product out year over year and thus, manufacturing costs go down and that is where that 10% actually comes from.

I agree with the original post

I agree with the original point. Apple exercises a very specific kind of control over the organisations at the Asian sites, a control other companies don't seem to be able to enforce, such as forcing people to get up for a 12 hour shift because a sudden demand has come in from Apple in the middle of the night and making staff work in areas known to be cumbistible because of the environmental aluminium dust.

This article is informative --> http://www.extremetech.com/computing/115833-apples-record-profits-built-on-grinding-employees-into-dust-then-blowing-them-up

Apple staff discounts

You may wish to note that while folks who work for Apple, in Cupertino, say, don't work as hard as the kids at FoxComm, the work is not easy. The hours are demanding and while the financials are good, say so long to any kind of social life. The employee discount and the occasional fondleslab don't actually make up for not actually seeing your family.

@Bishop Joey

Stockholm Syndrome

I know a lot of ex-Apple people, and I am one myself. While we were there, we thought it was fine, but now, I don't know any of them who would go back and work for Apple, and the company is in much better shape now than in our time. It's a pressure-cooker, and cash is no good to you if you end up dead. (That 63,000 figure includes a lot of retail and customer support staff; the engineering and product development staff is very, very small for a company its size, and they're worked like rented mules)

Bismarck said "Laws are like sausages. It's better not to see them being made." These days, I'd add "Apple products" to that.

... Also, when I worked there, I seem to recall the employee discount was approx 15~20% off up to two products every year, which I think is more lucrative than this latest offer.

Unique?

In my long and painful experience in the IT and related industries (computer/software manufacturers, telecoms, banks, engineering, pharmaceutical), this is normal in the engineering, support and design areas. Worse, for real engineers etc., the promotion paths are few and far between and it is not uncommon, (twice here in the last month) for staff on holiday to be recalled for something "urgent". Our basic working week is 42 hours, not including mealtimes. This particular billet is better than some (though not for salary(:).

My easiest times were as an external contractor, paid hourly; because they had to pay, not that this always helped.

The only relaxed place I have worked at became bankrupt.

So if you have found a relaxed place that pays a living salary, enjoy it and keep your fingers crossed.

Just an example: I have still got 55 days of holiday and 100 hours of overtime to take for this year and last year, despite taking a month off at the beginning of last year. I am not unusual.

As for Foxcom and the like, look at them in the context of where they are, not where you are or where Apple HQ is. In China or India, the equivalent of $17 buys a lot more than in California or most parts of Europe. Where I live we pay the equivalent of US$4 or $5 for a cup of tea or coffee, US$20 for lunch. But I have found such a sum will feed me for several days in parts of Asia and even in countries like Slovakia will go much further. So simplistic arguments based on numbers are ignorant and irrelevant.

Similarly, most of the workers are not there because the farm on which they laboured or the road they maintained had vanished. They are there because it pays more in cleaner, warmer conditions and often had to compete hard to get the job. Of course, conditions could be better and eventually will be. But I venture to say that one could visit parts of the Southern USA or Michigan or even fruit orchards in California and find people who would envy Foxcom employees.

If you see it as the responsibility of Apple, HP, Dell, IBM et alia to sort this out, then it is even more so yours and mine as the people who demand the low prices and buy the goods and so are the ultimate paymasters and drivers of the pressure on the workers, whether these are fellow citizens or subcontractors in a land far away.

Company sells own products at discount to staff.

'We doubt that the same treatment will be extended to Apple's hundreds of thousands of contracted employees in China and Asia, who work long hours making devices for manufacturers such as Foxconn or Pegatron.'

Er... that would possibly be because they're not contracted to Apple, they're contracted to Foxconn or Pegatron?

ahh

Mr 'Appleluurve' himself. I wish you could accept that other people can have ideas and opinions and that even though you may not agree with them you should accept the difference of opinion without resorting to the downvote button and getting personal.

All Praise to Apple - NOT!!!!

So a company sitting on a cash pile nearing US$100 billion throws some peanuts to its staff, unlike the CEO who gets a wad of cash and Shares.

The least they could have offered to their actual employees is an iPad or iPhone free of charge and perhaps 10 shares each - so, this really is shite.

Also, why not ensure Foxconn and its other multiple suppliers pay at least a minimum salary to each of their contracted workers - say US$25 per day!!!

I may utilise their products, but their attitude to employees and sub-contractors alike sucks, obviously the 'FANBOIS" will flame me, but facts are facts.

Apple could do no better than return some employment back to the USA, instead, and if we follow their and their competitors business models, within a few years there will be no one left in the USA, and Europe to boot, to purchase their expensive products and their sub contractors at Foxconn et.al will hardly be in a position to take up this slack unless they are prepared to take out a mortgage to own a Jesus Phone and Fondleslab.

Backsourcing production

I agree - this would be a good thing, given our skewed economic models and high unemployment.

But until US/EU/UK has a genuine, slap-dunk USP for doing so, manufacture will remain abroad. At this moment in time, we're more expensive, slower, bureaucracy-laden and our supposedly higher quality standard is not guaranteed.

as much as i hold a general loathing and contempt of any one who owns an apple product and the products themselves, if i had some money to invest in tech stock, it would all be going into apple. my only regret is not buying shares when the market realised the ipod was "the next big thing" (tm).

This article should have been published by The Inquirer

That's not a particularly good discount

When I worked for Sony Ericsson we got great discounts off Sony products. It was typically 35% off *trade* price, so approaching half the real retail price - not RRP.

Some products had much bigger discounts and they were not just the things gathering dust in a warehouse, or ends of line. Some products - like the e-book were available at better discounts on the day of introduction.

In theory there was a limit of one of each product per person per year but this wasn't enforced. I guess if you started and e-bay shop it would be. There were some excluded products including Playstation.

In the software business starf discounts are tremendous. The Microsoft shop on campus is a fatnastic place to visit.